Riot Strewn Barcelona Saw More Battles Last Night With Rubber Bullets Deployed

There were fresh battles on the streets of Barcelona last night, when violent protesters set fire to over a dozen vehicles, hurled nasty acid and missiles at riot officers, and even overhead police helicopters were fired at with firework type missiles.

Over 50 fires were recorded according to city officials. There were 33 arrests and nearly 100 people required medical assistance, 30 of them being police officers, following the five-hour battles.

The scenes were very similar to Tuesday night’s riots, but it appeared to be less in numbers but, more hardcore protesters. 

The violence kicked off at around 9 pm, following a peaceful demonstration by around 22,000 people at the intersection of Gran Vía and Marina street.

  Groups of protesters walked over to the headquarters of the home affairs department wearing face masks, which was being protected by riot protection dressed police officers and began shaking the metal fence panels while calling for the resignation of department chief Miquel Buch.

The atmosphere turned becoming even more tense, and the Police used their vans to force the protesters away from the spot while the protesters lobbed bricks and bottles at them, As rubbish bins were torched and set alight and were going up in flames on the streets.

The police retaliated with their guns shooting rubber bullets at the protesters. One woman being seriously injured taking a rubber bullet to the head.

Yards away more demonstrators set light to dozens of cars and motorbikes and were also shot at by the firing police and battles continued.